Hey,

I have two separate, but related, questions not covered by policy:

* If you are the only person mentioned in a changelog and you change your
email address, when you do a new upload, is it okay to modify all of the old
changelog entries to use the new email address?

* Is it okay to occasionally modify old changelog entries for clarity and
style, typos and such like, as long as you don't change the semantics?

Thanks,

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On Mon, January 19, 2009 13:00, Noah Slater wrote:
> I have two separate, but related, questions not covered by policy:
>
> * If you are the only person mentioned in a changelog and you change your
> email address, when you do a new upload, is it okay to modify all of the
> old changelog entries to use the new email address?

I see no harm but also no gain in this.

> * Is it okay to occasionally modify old changelog entries for clarity and
> style, typos and such like, as long as you don't change the semantics?

I would say that this is perfectly fine. The changelog is documentation of
which changes happened between version n and m. If you can improve that
documentation, I see no reason to leave it inferior.


Thijs


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On Mon, 19 Jan 2009, Noah Slater wrote:

> * If you are the only person mentioned in a changelog and you change your
> email address, when you do a new upload, is it okay to modify all of the old
> changelog entries to use the new email address?

I wouldn't.

> * Is it okay to occasionally modify old changelog entries for clarity and
> style, typos and such like, as long as you don't change the semantics?

The occassional fix for the previous few changelog entries is probably
fine.

Cheers,
weasel
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On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 01:06:53PM +0100, Thijs Kinkhorst wrote:
> On Mon, January 19, 2009 13:00, Noah Slater wrote:
> > I have two separate, but related, questions not covered by policy:
> >
> > * If you are the only person mentioned in a changelog and you change your
> > email address, when you do a new upload, is it okay to modify all of the
> > old changelog entries to use the new email address?
>
> I see no harm but also no gain in this.

Sure. Doing so satisfies my OCD need for consistency though. Heh heh.

> > * Is it okay to occasionally modify old changelog entries for clarity and
> > style, typos and such like, as long as you don't change the semantics?
>
> I would say that this is perfectly fine. The changelog is documentation of
> which changes happened between version n and m. If you can improve that
> documentation, I see no reason to leave it inferior.

I agree completely.

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On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Noah Slater <nslater@tumbolia.org> wrote:
> * If you are the only person mentioned in a changelog and you change your
> email address, when you do a new upload, is it okay to modify all of the old
> changelog entries to use the new email address?

It is better that you leave as it is. Changelog should tell exactly
who did what (even if its you alone) :P

> * Is it okay to occasionally modify old changelog entries for clarity and
> style, typos and such like, as long as you don't change the semantics?

Its fine when you mention in last changelog. Specially, I fix typos too often!

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On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 01:20:17PM +0100, Peter Palfrader wrote:
> > * Is it okay to occasionally modify old changelog entries for clarity and
> > style, typos and such like, as long as you don't change the semantics?
>
> The occassional fix for the previous few changelog entries is probably
> fine.

In fact, I can think of one case where I'd actually encourage it. We
occasionally update packages to solve security issues before a CVE
number for the particular vulnerability is known. Retroactively
modifying the changelog to include the CVE number, once it's known,
helps to resolve any doubt about the specifics of the issue.

noah

Noah Slater <nslater@tumbolia.org> writes:

> On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 01:06:53PM +0100, Thijs Kinkhorst wrote:
> > On Mon, January 19, 2009 13:00, Noah Slater wrote:
> > > * If you are the only person mentioned in a changelog and you
> > > change your email address, when you do a new upload, is it okay
> > > to modify all of the old changelog entries to use the new email
> > > address?
> >
> > I see no harm but also no gain in this.
>
> Sure. Doing so satisfies my OCD need for consistency though. Heh
> heh.

Surely consistency would argue *against* changing the historical
record? When those releases were made, the email address was as
recorded at the time. That it changed later should not alter the
existing factual record on earlier entries. No?

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Ben Finney


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On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 09:07:06AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
> > Sure. Doing so satisfies my OCD need for consistency though. Heh
> > heh.
>
> Surely consistency would argue *against* changing the historical
> record? When those releases were made, the email address was as
> recorded at the time. That it changed later should not alter the
> existing factual record on earlier entries. No?

Well, I guess it depends what your personal æsthetic is.

I like per-file consistency over (arguably unimportant) historical correctness.

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On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 04:38:48PM -0500, Noah Meyerhans wrote:
> In fact, I can think of one case where I'd actually encourage it. We
> occasionally update packages to solve security issues before a CVE
> number for the particular vulnerability is known. Retroactively
> modifying the changelog to include the CVE number, once it's known,
> helps to resolve any doubt about the specifics of the issue.

ACK. Similarly to this use case, I've the one in which you mistyped a
"Closes: #XXXXX" bug entry. Sure you will the need to manually close /
tag as fixed the bug, but in terms of future reviews fixing the
"Closes:" line will help understanding a change.

A question on this: would the BTS re-read the fixed changelog in
future uploads to update the version graph anyhow, or will it do that
only if the .changes file will contain all relevant entries? (as in
"dpkg-buildpackage -vXXX")

Cheers.

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On Tue, 20 Jan 2009, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:

> A question on this: would the BTS re-read the fixed changelog in
> future uploads to update the version graph anyhow, or will it do that
> only if the .changes file will contain all relevant entries? (as in
> "dpkg-buildpackage -vXXX")

The BTS doesn't read changelogs. Your .changes file has a list of bugs
it closes right there as its own entry. That list is automatically
constructed from the changelog entries that you include in the changes
file.

The debian archive software just creates mails to the xxx-done addresses
based on the numbers listed in the Closes: entry of .changes files - it
doesn't care about changelog entries in the changes file and certainly
not about past changelog entries that it'll find only in the package.


If you want the BTS to know which versions have the bug or not use
proper found/notfound commands to the command bot. Or send a mail to
-done with a proper Version: pseudo header.

cheers
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